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Monday, April 21

Laura Jarratt – Skin Deep

Ugly people don't have feelings. They're not like
everyone else. They don't notice if you stare at them and turn away. And if
they did notice, it wouldn't hurt them. They're not like real people. Or that's
what I used to think. Before I learned...After the car crash that leaves her
best friend dead, Jenna is permanently scarred. She struggles to rebuild her
life, but every stare in the street, every time she looks in the mirror, makes
her want to retreat further from the world. Until she meets Ryan. Ryan's a
traveller. When he and his mother moor their narrow boat on the outskirts of a
village, she tells him this time it will be different. He doesn't believe her;
he can't imagine why this place shouldn't be as unwelcoming as the rest. Until
he meets Jenna. But as Jenna and Ryan grow closer, repercussions from the crash
continue to reverberate through the community. And then a body is found...

Skin Deep is one of the
most wonderful books I’ve ever read. When I bought it I didn’t know how young the
characters are and when I realized my mistake I thought: damn this will be
stupid as hell. Anyway because I’ve already had it I started to read it and I was
surprised in a good way. It isn’t lame, not at all, and even if the characters
are really young (the girl is 14, the boy is 16) they got some pretty hard shit in their lives which
made them more mature than others in their age.

However this book’s a
little strange because even if it demonstrate real issues and not so perfect
lives it’s still kind of a light read, at least it was for me.

If someone reads the
summary of the book she probably thinks this is just another teen romance where
the author tried to deal with hard problems in between the kissing scenes but
couldn’t succeed. I’m more than happy to tell you this wasn’t the case in this
book.

I think the main theme
of the book was dealing with problems for example how the scar influenced Jenna’s
life or the death of her best friend and letting go of the past. The second
most important thing was the romance which was just as properly written, Ryan’s love and support
helped Jenna through the hard times and he gave her back her love of life. The
last was the mystery which started after half of the book and lasted nearly to
the end. All these were amazingly written even the mystery wasn’t obvious so we
can say the author created a balance between the themes of the book.

As I said it was pretty
great, it wasn’t love at first sight and it wasn’t unbelievable either, besides
the young age of the characters it felt much stronger than in other books. I
loved these two together, it wasn’t just cheesy stuff like in most
romances, they actually had problems which weren’t self created and they could
talk to each other about these and tried to figure out their issues together.

There were some pretty
deep problems in this book which weren’t just random issues thrown into our
faces, each and every one of them were well-made. There were every kind of
problems showing up in this book: family issues, mental-health, love and hate,
self-hatred, death, moving on and depending on others opinion of you.

Besides the conflict
between Jenna and her father all of these were perfectly built up, my favorite
was the mental-illness of Ryan’s mother. It was so well-made how at first we
had no idea about it so when Ryan mentioned it I was totally surprised which
showed how a person with maniac depression can be completely normal in one
moment then half-crazy in the next. It was showed from the point of an outsider too, through the eyes of Jenna, and we could see how much his mother's illness affected Ryan's life.

Jenna: She was so shy
in the beginning and so suspicious of everyone even when they didn’t mean anything
bad. I can’t even start to imagine how could she feel after the accident. She
didn’t even wanted to be there that night and unlike the others she felt uneasy and everything what happened after… It would have been bad
enough to know that your best-friend died when it could have been avoided but
knowing that she died because of a guy who didn’t even come to her funeral? Horrible.

It was amazing to watch
how she loosened up and started to make new friends and refreshed old
friendships.

“But good girls don't do that, don't make a fuss, don't upset parents. And I was a good girl so I curled up on the floor and sobbed silently instead.”

Ryan: I love, love, love
him. He was such an amazing and supporting character, he couldn’t care less
about the scars of Jenna, they were a part of her and he could accept that
easily. He always tried to protect Jenna, he wanted to stay away because he
knew they’ll move away one day and he didn’t want to break her heart. How he
took care of his mother was more than impressing and when he thought he did
something the wrong way he always felt so bad about it.

“They’re just scars.
They’re not you.”

‘Big isn’t always the
best.’He turned to me,
smirking.

‘Are you sure about that?’

Ryan’s mother, Karen:
If she didn’t have her maniac depression she would have been an amazing mother.
She deeply cared about her son and I don’t think she ever realized how much Ryan
hates moving. I just don’t get why did she wanted to move in the end so badly…
didn’t she see how much Ryan loved Jenna? How much they needed each other? She
probably thought they will get over each other soon. She should have looked harder and see how deeply in love are they despite their young age.

“Scars are beautiful
too, you know. They’re a badge we wear to the world to show we’ve lived. And
that we’ve survived. So they have a beauty all of their own.”

Favorite character: Ryan, Jenna, Cole

Least favorite: Jenna's father

The story idea: 4/5

The realization of the
story: 5/5

The characters: 4/5

The cover: 3/5

I’d recommend it to
those who’d like to read about a romance where the characters suffer from real
problems.